June 11 - through Philly to D.C.

June 11

Early this morning we road the coach through New Jersey to board the ferry to Ellis Island. On the Island is immense registry building where the immigrants checked in on the second floor. Out the right window you could see the New York City sky line, and it made for a horrible existence if you were one of the immigrants who was denied entrance to the US and shipped back home after seeing the city and tasting freedom. Through the large second floor we could imagine the people crammed together shoulder to shoulder in a contemporary Babelian state. Downstairs I checked the registry for Stefan Gmitroe who came over in late 1890s, but to no avail. I could not find him. After buying some souvenirs we boarded the ferry for nearby Liberty Island where Lady Liberty watched over the poor and weary traveling to the United States.

I had never been to the Statue of Liberty and she was what we've always expected. Her greenish bronzed enormous frame loomed over the bay above, as we slowly circled the shore of the isle. We clicked pictures until we needed to board the ferry to go towards Battery Park and Ground Zero.

I had waved the New Mexico group towards the ferry boarding area, watched the group leader nod at my motions, and then I stepped onto our ferry with everyone but them. When we arrived in New York City, we realized they weren't there. The tour director sent us along on our own and waited for the last group to catch the next ferry. We crossed Battery Park where two nice law abiding men were selling copies of Episode III for only $5, which is cheaper than I paid to see it in the theatre.

National Treasure with Nic Cage culminated in Trinity Church at the corner of Wall Street and Broadway in NYC, so we made our way there quickly. We walked through the church clicking pictures before I lost sight of our small group of 11. Stepping from the church into the graveyard I saw the large root ball of a 200 year old tree that fell from the blasts of the WTC. It fell within a 10 foot space between the ancient church and the historical cemetery steps from Wall Street.

After a quick call to J I realized they had left me there and I quickly made my way to Starbuck's for an Iced Carmel Macchiato to sip on the walk to Ground Zero. Above a large empty space hung between sky scrapers reminding us of the occurrences of Sept 11, 2001. Below there was not much of anything, and I watched through the tall metal fence while a visiting choir group sang the Star Spangled Banner loudly for the crowd while facing the hole in the ground.

We the quickly met the bus and left the city. Stopping in Delaware at a rest area we had a quick, expensive lunch. The lines were out the door so I grabbed some cheese and an air freshener. This odd purchase was for the rear of the bus that stunk from days of multiple bodies shoved together. We reboarded the bus as soon as possible due to a humidity that felt hotter and more humid than Dante's lowest level of Hell.

We arrived in Philly at 3:05 to have our local tour guide board the bus in consternation for our mere minutes of tardiness. We visited the sea port before doing a walking tour through historic Philadelphia past places where the founding fathers met to discuss what no other group had ever discussed before. There were few photo-ops before making our way to Independence Hall for our tour. We arrived on time but had to pick up our tour tickets over 30 minutes in advance so most of us could not take the interior tour. I was one of those inside and viewed the signing room where the founding fathers signed the Declaration after writing and revising it in a room across the hall. It was one heck of a tour. We then walked across the square in Philadelphia to other sites before returning to the bus to head to dinner at the Spaghetti Warehouse.

At dinner, the tour director gave us her itineraries for the remainder of the trip and requested that we tailor our trip in DC to our liking. The four group leaders put together a game plan before we arrived in Gaithersburg, MD at the Comfort Inn. The tour director had provided the hotel with conflicting information and they gave away some of our rooms, which eventually worked out but the tour director had no room and slept in the dining room. We were nonplussed by her experience.